The Yankees are among the teams interested in star NPB pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, as noted by Newsday’s Erik Boland. Boland added that the club’s director of pro scouting Matt Daley is currently in Japan and another top scout visited to watch Yamamoto pitch earlier in the year. Jon Heyman of the New York Post also notes the Yankees interest, listing them among ten teams that scouted Yamamoto’s most recent start. That list of teams includes the club’s crosstown rival Mets as well as their division rival Red Sox.
Yamamoto, who claimed the #3 spot on MLBTR’s newest edition of the 2023-24 Free Agent Power Rankings, sports a sensational 1.34 ERA in 127 innings of work with the Orix Buffaloes this year, his age-24 season. That level of excellence extends all the way back to 2021; in 514 2/3 innings of work the past three seasons, Yamamoto’s ERA is 1.50 while he’s struck out 27.2% of batters he’s faced, walking just 5.2%. That level of dominance even eclipses that of former Yankee Masahiro Tanaka, who made two All Star appearances and posted a 3.33 ERA in ten postseason starts for the club after signing a seven-year, $155MM deal with New York prior to the 2014 season.
It’s no wonder the Yankees would have interest in Yamamoto; while they’ve gotten another excellent season out of ace Gerrit Cole, the club’s other starters have largely disappointed. Lefties Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes, nominally the club’s #2 and #3 starters, have been limited to just 7 and 12 starts respectively this season thanks to injuries and struggled badly. A Yamamoto signing would certainly give the Yankees a quality arm to pair with Cole at the top of their rotation while simultaneously helping to alleviate pressure not only on Rodon and Cortes, but also on youngsters like Clarke Schmidt, Jhony Brito, and Randy Vasquez entering 2024.
More from around the AL East…
- Orioles outfield prospect Heston Kjerstad is on the club’s radar for a possible call-up option when rosters expand on September 1, as GM Mike Elias told reporters (including BaltimoreBaseball.com’s Rich Dubroff). The 2nd overall pick in the 2020 draft, Kjerstad didn’t make his MiLB debut until last June thanks to a myocarditis diagnosis but has done nothing but hit since then. In 473 trips to the plate this season between the Double-A and Triple-A levels, the 24-year-old outfielder has slashed a sensational .308/.378/.542 with a strikeout rate just below 18%. If called up for the stretch run, Kjerstad would join an outfield that typically sports Austin Hays in left, Cedric Mullins in center, and Anthony Santander in right.
- Blue Jays reliever Erik Swanson exited today’s game against the Guardians with right mid-back discomfort, as noted by The Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath. The severity of Swanson’s injury isn’t yet known, but even a short absence for the right-hander, who sports a 3.10 ERA and a 29.4% strikeout rate in 58 innings of work this season, would be a substantial blow to Toronto’s bullpen. Of course, the club would still have right-handers Jordan Romano (2.60 ERA, 29.9% strikeout rate) and Jordan Hicks (3.83 ERA, 30.3% strikeout rate) available for the late innings even if Swanson required a trip to the injured list.
Can we officially stop pretending Nestor is nasty or even a top pitcher already?
Why? He’s having a down year.
Because he’s injured?
He’ll always be injured because he’s too weak to be in the bigs
Why? Because he’s been hurt? He’s not nasty or effective when he’s healthy? Please explain.
Maybe because he was a flash in the pan last year and really isn’t that great.
It goes beyond last year.
Also this year his first two times through a lineup were in line with his numbers since joining the Yankees. His struggles were the third time through which turned out to be an injury. When he came back, even though he went right back out, he pitched great.
Again, his problem is injury.
2021 never happened IG
Very fair comment…he gets by on gile and deception with those funky deliveries and quick pitches of his…..hammered more times than not on the 3d time through the order (which lots of pitchers actually have happen) assuming he’s a #2 or even #3 is a bad bet…….his greatest workload was last year at 158 innings and now you see the results this year with him on the shelf…..
IG?
@Joe says: “his problem is injury.”
Why does that matter? Results are results. No mulligans.
Injury does not equal “flash in the pan”.
@Joe says: Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. He doesn’t have a long track record of success.
No guarantees.
I’ll take his career numbers and two more arb seasons which should be cheap since he’s been out for most of this year. Nasty Nestor is not part of the Yankees’ problem.
True enough. They suck as a team and organization.
No the “Nasty Nestor” thing is marketing not actual sustained performance.
New Jersey and a Birds fan. A double strike.
@njbirdsfan: What exit?
Blue Jays have a plethora of riches in their bullpen. I think I can tip my cap to the much-maligned Atkins for doing that. Also for the Belt & Gausman signings. Shatkins is not the anti-christ, BJ fans.
Nope, I’ve had my issues with the drafts and some trades but 2023 is on the players.
Only thing I wonder is if he should have pulled the trigger on a new hitting coach earlier in the season. Just to have a new voice but that’s it
And is Don Mattingly having any influence at all?? It seems like the team could use a little veteran leadership in the dugout but there seems to be a vacuum in that spot instead. If the Jays don’t slip into the final mix of playoff teams, I think they need to move on from youthful but inexperienced Schneider. (Who I think was also my high school JV wrestling coach.)
Schneider has had a lot of blunders this year.
But a reasonable projection of 3 young core players in Vlad, Kirk and Manoah for 2023 was 12-13 WAR
Instead they are getting 1.1
Can’t out manage that, not with no upper minors depth in those positions
I was about to write that exact same thing, 100% agreed. The regression seen with those three dudes (and whatever is the deal with Springer) is a huge cloud over the club right now. Some sort of breakdown in development/coaching/fitness/conditioning …Pitching sure got the attention & they have the pitching coach wizard there yet dropped the ball on hitting side.
Hey Dusty what is your diagnosis on Vladdy…? What do you think is going on with him? Is it a maturity issue? A conditioning issue? A matter of lack of focus ???
My hunch is simply that there are too many people in his ear, he’s trying to do too much and that lack of approach is leading to him being late on velocity and swinging at pitchers pitches.
His pull% is down significantly, all the under lying numbers are still strong because he’s so talented, but it’s the approach
I’m wondering where they’re going to have to go to get somebody who can hit.
Very soon, I think. The number of games in which they are low-hit is astounding. They have exactly two players, Judge and Torres, with OPS+ of 100 or more. This is a gruesome team performance. The 1962 Mets had two starters with OPS+ 100 or more and a couple of subs with more than 100 PA as well.
Miami system?
I understand that Domingo German can hit.
DG is just a slap hitter.
I think the Yankees have other higher priorities than Yamamoto like addressing their offense. Having a rotation of Cole, Rodon, and Yamamoto isn’t going to help improve the team much if they can’t hit.
They’ll have multiple priorities!
They will repeat what they have been doing, which is not effective. That is: they will overpay for a bat (Bellinger) because they tried to save when they should’ve spent on the real deal (Harper), which would’ve cost them less money, ironically.
In other words, same mistakes of not spending on the right players to spend more later on lesser players.
Same thing with 1B. Passing on Olson and Freeman not only hurt them, but will cost them more later on for a lesser player.
An actual Yankee Clipper sighting. I thought you had gone the way of Ducky and Fink.
Kjerstad could be one of those rookies who comes up and puts on a show down the home stretch and into the playoffs like Randy Arozarena did a few years ago, the dude THUMPS.
I doubt he gets the call this year, but it would probably be the most impactful (potentially) September call up available to Mike Elias.
Extend Bauers & McKinney. Force-feed them Wheaties & only Wheaties and see them POWRRR-UP ! And sneak PEDs to Kiner-Falefa on the down-low, with Popeye arms IKF could hit 20 bombs.
Because the pitching is the Yankees problem……….Yeah go sign him, lock another guy up to a contract
The Yankees are leading the league in most money paid to players on the IL. So they got that going for them.
Go full Asia mode…
Yoshinobu Yamamoto RHP is a solid starter that will become an instant star in MLB
Shota Imanga LHP a decent starter that would be a solid number 5 in a major league rotation. Huge K rates and low walks.
Yuki Matsui LHP closer that has dominated Japan baseball for years.
Jung Hoo Lee LF with some speed but amazing OBP and very few K’s.
They would be a great compliment to signing Ohtani.
Cole, Othtani, Yamamoto, Rodon, Imanga would be a very solid rotation with Cortes in the wings waiting for Rodon to slip on a bar of soap.